Gary
Nallan called
the meeting to order at 3:20pm and welcomed Senators and
guests.Pamela Nickless is attending an Economic History
Conference.

II.Approval
of minutes

The
Faculty Senate minutes of August
25, 2005, were approved as distributed.

III.Administrative
Report

Enrollment
Report

Archer Gravely (Director of
Institutional Research) and Scot Schaeffer (Director of Admissions and
Financial Aid) gave the enrollment report.Dr. Gravely distributed a preliminary Fall Enrollment Report that
included a five-year comparison of enrollment by various demographic
categories.There has been a decline in headcount, FTE, and
diversity.We are below the budgeted
enrollment figure by five percent.The
good news:international students
increased substantially, the mean SAT scores increased 14 points to 1183, and
the mean high school class rank is up 5.3 percent to 80.A class rank of 80 means that the average
student is in the top fifth quintile in their class – this is a good predictor
of success.Out-of-state enrollment was
16.5 percent.

Mr. Schaeffer explained that the figures are a natural
consequence of the new enrollment management process begun last year with a
fixed enrollment deadline rather than a rolling deadline.When a change is made in the application
process, the application pool automatically shrinks.When a change is made to increase quality,
typically the freshman class will not equal or grow from the year before.It will take two or three years to rebound to
600 freshmen.A 14 point increase in the
mean SAT for one year is remarkable -- and the mean high school rank percentile
increased from 76 to 80.Out-of-state
students were rejected at a higher rate because we could not exceed the 18%
enrollment cap three years in a row.

The Senate briefly discussed enrollment projections and
their impact on the budget.Enrollment
targets are set two years in advance and budgets are based on expansion.If there is no expansion, there is no
increase in funding.Senators agreed
there were trade offs -- lower enrollment figures resulted in less money needed
for new people coming in.

Mr. Schaeffer reported minority students made up 10% of the
incoming class.The greatest increase
came from the Asian population.He
highlighted efforts to increase diversity:

·This
summer UNCA, ASU, and ECU participated in Europe of North Carolina, a federally
funded program for first generation college students.During the week-long program high school
students lived on campus and worked on SAT prep, essay writing, and career
paths.They worked on team building,
ropes courses, whitewater rafting, and hiked Mt.Mitchell.Twenty-five students participated (10 African American, 10 white, 5
Latino).The Office of the President
provided $500 per student and in kind, the Admissions staff stayed the entire
week and Housing was free.UNCA has been
approved to do this again next year.

·The
Diversity Task Force started a Community Connection program that targets new
African American and Latino students.They were invited to a reception on move-in day and convocation and held
a barbeque.These students are being connected with a
community member of the same race – they can get together for a home-cooked
meal, to attend church, or just to talk with someone from off campus.The Diversity Task Force is made up of BOT
members, Foundation Board members, and the National Alumni Board.Mr. Schaeffer is a guest on the
committee.

·Plans
for this year:

- Advertise in Latino newspapers.

- Diversity phone campaign (starting October 2nd).

- Translate publications into Spanish.

- Continue to target high schools with strong diverse
populations.

- Developed a Shadow Day program where high school students
shadow a student in the discipline they are interested in (November 9th).

- Hold additional overnight opportunities (attached with the
Open Houses) for diversity students.

- Admissions Ambassadors and the Black Student Association
are going to contact prospective high school students and visit their high
schools during fall break.

- Push to bring in people when Naomi Tutu visits in
February.

- The College Access Conference will be in Asheville this year.It provides access for under-represented
populations across the state.

- Will do some programming with NCUR since it will be on
campus this year.

Mr. Schaeffer had less scholarship money to offer this year
compared to last year.

Discussion turned to minority application and acceptance
rates.Mr. Schaeffer acknowledged that
we are falling short in the application process.We need to have earlier outreach and we need
the help of everyone on the campus.When
minorities apply, they are accepted at a higher rate than the other
populations.Generally, once they apply,
our acceptance rates, enrollment rates, and retention and graduation rates are
usually equal to or slightly higher than for white students.What we have been doing through education is
working.We have enrolled four students
this year in the AVID program from AshevilleHigh School.The Legislative Opportunity grant is no longer funded but we have been
holding the money for these students.Basically, they are going to school here free for four years.

Mr. Schaeffer reported on the difficulty in recruiting
Native American students.They visit CherokeeHigh School and the other two high schools in
the area two or three times a year.They
have also met with people in the tribe. Typically, these students do not attend
schools far from home.It takes time to
develop relationships – and until they are comfortable, they will not send
students here.

PROVOST

Travel
Restrictions

Dr. Padilla referred to the
memorandum from the Office of State Budget on travel restrictions and urged
faculty to contact him to seek permission to travel.Receiving his permission allows faculty to be
reimbursed.He did not believe the
travel restrictions would be extended beyond September 30th.

HUB
project

Dr. Padilla reminded Senators of the AB Tech UNCA
collaboration around the HUB project, the economic developing planning process
that he reported on last month.He and
others will attend a dinner and meeting at AB Tech tonight – Bruce Larson will attend from the Senate.The HUB plan was summarized in an editorial
in the Asheville Citizen-Times on Monday.

Students
Displaced by Hurricane Katrina

UNCA has admitted ten students who
were displaced by Hurricane Katrina.They are coming here because they have resources, such as family or
friends in the area to stay with.These
students are being granted free tuition for the fall term.

Dr. Padilla has received a number of
requests from faculty asking that privileges be extended for Katrina displaced
faculty members.A number of faculty
members are sharing offices and the administration has arranged for email
addresses.Library requests are being
forwarded to the library. He thanked faculty for reaching out to scholars and
professors who are displaced.

Faculty
Salary Increases (2005-06)

On October 12th Dr.
Padilla will address how faculty salaries are adjusted each year.Other relevant topics for discussion might
include peer-group comparisons, salary inversion, salary compression, and salary
depression, and their relationship to institutional priorities.He would like to have a conversation on how
the instructional budget can best serve the University mission.

The Legislature provided a 2%
increase for our continuing faculty.All
continuing faculty are currently scheduled to receive a fixed salary adjustment
of $850.Another pool of funding, albeit
modest in size, will be available for merit-based and equity adjustments.The BD 119 process is scheduled to be
completed by October 31st.Salary letters are scheduled to be sent out by mid-November, as soon as
they can be composed and assembled to be mailed at the same time.Increases will be retroactive to July
2005.

One area of inequity in the Faculty
Salary Distribution Report was in the “other minority” faculty.About $12,000 of out-of-state funds approved
by the Legislature will be used to address these salary deficits.

Dr. Padilla will propose a new Chairs’ recompensation
system at the next Chairs’ meeting.His
proposal would keep the course reduction formula but would provide stipend
support up to $4,000 per year.The
stipends would be encumbered from state funds and would begin the term July
1, 2006, or
whenever there were new Chairs.Current Chairs would have the option to stay on the old system
or go on the new system.He plans to
also examine the stipend structure for Program Directors.

Dr. Padilla proposed a non-market beginning salary of
$43,500.Out-of-state tuition increases
dedicated to faculty salaries will be used to ensure we do not create salary
inversion.These funds will also be used
for promotion, post-tenure review, and re-appointment, as well as $100,000 for
ILS development.

Faculty Positions

We have new permanent faculty probationary positions in
Drama, History, Spanish, Atmospheric Sciences, Chemistry, Math, Education,
Health & Fitness (2), and Environmental Studies.In response to department requests, long term
lecturers have been hired in Mass Communication, Chemistry, Education, and
Spanish.Searches are underway for five
tenure track positions.Beginning salaries
have become a bigger issue – we lost more candidates last year due to salaries
than in previous years.

The recent Enrollment Growth & University Size Task
Force Report recommended that we cap our annualized FTE at 3,500 students.If the administration releases more tenure
track positions they will have to be paid for with growth money.Some people will be retiring or leaving and
we can replace some of those but we are at the point now where we are looking
at stable faculty size and looking at every single position carefully, making
sure there is student interest.

IV.Executive
Committee Report

Gary Nallan gave the Executive Committee Report.

Standing Rules and Rules of Order

The new Constitution calls for Standing Rules and Rules of
Order (SRRO) that will be effective for one year.These were distributed at the last meeting.With a few exceptions, the SRRO follows
current practice:

·IDC
Changes:The Institutional Development
Committee will fulfill the functions of the University Planning Council for the
2005-06 academic year.(This will likely
change next year as the Faculty Senate addresses how we do planning.)

·Election
Changes:Faculty who have accepted the
nomination by another faculty member for an elected faculty committee or who
have self-nominated will have their interest noted on the ballot.

·APC procedural changes:Approve minor curricular change and report those changes to the
Senate.

Dr. Nallan
explained that the Chair of APC will determine whether proposed changes are minor or
major.A proposed change is minor if
there are no substantive resource implications for either the department or the
university, or there is no change in the size of a degree program or
minor.The Chair forwards all documents,
designated as major or minor, to the other members of APC.Major documents will be considered by APC as a whole and, if APC concurs that the change is major
and approves of the change, forwarded to the Faculty Senate for final
action.Minor documents will not be
considered by APC as a whole, and will be reported directly to the Senate unless any member of APC asks that the committee consider
the document.If APC approves the document, and the
change is still considered minor, it is reported directly to the Senate.

The
Standing Rules and Rules of Order passed unanimously.

V.Student Government
Association Report

Vice President DavonSanchez-Ossorioreported for the Student Government
Association.

and
Program Directors to request the use of paperback books when they are
available.They do not want faculty to
change the textbooks they are using – but if there is a paperback version of
it, they would like to use it to save students money.When students order paperback versions on
line they arrive late, putting students at a disadvantage.

VI.Academic Policies
Committee

Claudel McKenzie reported for the Academic Policies
Committee.

APC Goals for 2005-06

In
response to faculty feedback, APC will consider working on the following issues this
year:

·The
large number of hours UNCA requires for Transfers to graduate with Latin
Honors; and,

·The
clarity of the Catalog copy concerning the new ILS general education program.

VII.Institutional
Development Committee Report

Bruce Larson reported for the Institutional
Development Committee.

SACS
Update

As Chair of IDC, Dr. Larson is a
member of the SACS Committee that is looking at how we are going to develop a
plan towards our next SACS visitation.On May 12th Dr. Padilla established the committee and appointed
Jim
Kuhlman
as Chair.They have met three times to
review the SACS process, taking a broad overview with regard to institutional
effectiveness which is a very important part of the SACS review.Mr. Kuhlman will give an update at the next
Senate meeting.

Report
on Organizational Meeting

IDC met on September 6 and spent
time getting to know each other and going over the IDC Handbook.The Handbook helps to orient their work, and
it is useful to see not only what IDC does but – in this year when IDC is
functioning as the University Planning Council – to see what that might relate
to as well.

Special
Meeting

There will be a special meeting on
September 22nd from 3:15-4:30pm to discuss Masters’ programs at
UNCA.This is a very important issue for
the University that we are likely to hear a lot about.

IDC’s
role in the Asheville Graduate Center

Dr. Lisnerski asked if the
University had officially taken over the direction of the AshevilleGraduateCenter and, if so, what IDC’s role would
be. Dr. Larson replied that IDC’s role
was not clear – we have to have a relationship and discussion in relation to
the GraduateCenter.He asked Dr. Padilla to comment.

Dr. Padilla replied that IDC can have any relationship it
wants with the AshevilleGraduateCenter.We are still in discussion about the fee structure that WesternCarolinaUniversity should be under for the AshevilleGraduateCenter.The Office of the President (OP) has essentially taken over that process
and assigned an accountant/auditor to address the issue.Bill Styres and Dr.
Padilla presented our case strenuously and OP has heard us.However they have not yet decided whether WCU
should pay according to the fee structure that is established for Centers in
general.Right now WCU has a special
funding formula that dates back to the early 1980s.UNCA is pushing for what we think is a fair
fee structure.Once that is settled,
there will be much more information about how the AshevilleGraduateCenter is operating and can operate, and
what the opportunities are to get involved.The AGC is going to be a conduit for us to get involved with the
community and with other universities.IDC will have to decide how it wants to hook into it – any way is fine
with him.

Dr. Larson added that since the AshevilleGraduateCenter is under UNCA now, it is part of
the institution and consequently it is within the realm of responsibilities,
duties, and opportunities of IDC.Dr.
Padilla added that administratively Don Locke continues to be the Director
through this semester.Sandra Byrd is
the Associate Director.On January
1, 2006,
Sandra Byrd will become the Director and will report to AVC Friedenberg.

VIII.Faculty Welfare and
Development Committee Report

Don
Lisnerski reported for the Faculty Welfare and Development Committee.

Dr. Lisnerski moved to waive the
Comer Rule to consider FWDC 1 today.Dr.
Judson seconded the motion which passed unanimously.The proposal was considered for Second
Reading.

FWDC 1 provides the Committee flexibility in determining who
will serve as Chair and can provide for continuity in subcommittee
leadership.FWDC 1 passed unanimously
and became Senate document 0105F.

Appoint ILSOC member

The
Senate appointed Alan Hantz to complete Linda Nelms’ term on ILSOC.

Guide to FWDC and
faculty development opportunities at UNCA

This year FWDC would like to develop
a guide or brochure on all of the faculty development opportunities that exist
on campus.They will do this in
conjunction with the Center for Teaching and Learning.This will be especially helpful for new
faculty and for recruitment purposes.

IX.Old
Business

There was no Old Business.

X.New Business

There
was no New Business.

XI.Adjourn/Reconvene

Dr. Nallan adjourned the meeting at 4:27pm and reconvened at 4:28pm for the Committee Assignment
report.

Report on new Committee Assignment process

Mary Lynn Manns reported that the new committee
assignment process is going better than expected.The committees were placed on the website
last spring and corrections were made over summer.As with any new process, there are a few
growing pains.The University Service
Council (USC) will ask for suggestions for improvements.A persistent problem is that we are not
getting the committee list out until late September.A lot of the work has been done but they
still have to go through the approval process that includes USC, FWDC, and the
Provost.